How to Use Challenges to Grow Your Business with Rush Sadiwala: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by high level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how to use challenges to grow your business. And to drop these vibe bombs, I brought Rush Sadawala into EO Fire Studios. Rush is the founder and CEO of Framework, a platform to run challenges on. He worked as an investor prior to becoming a founder and is an immigrant who graduated from Duke University and got an MBA from Columbia. And today we talk about how you should work on your strengths rather than your weaknesses, how having people do some work for you before joining your community creates more value.

0:37And challenges are an incredible mechanism to achieve your goals and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Rush and our sponsors. Fire Nation, this is your year to get unstuck and to grow a successful business. Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Again, request life changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies?

1:13Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white-label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Rush, say what's up to Fire Nation, and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Thanks for having me, John. And this is such an honor. So one thing that I believe most people think that you should work on your weaknesses, I think you should work on your strengths. Instead of boiling the ocean, just identify one, maybe two things that you're really, really good at and just focus on that.

1:58And for everything else, just find other people who can do it better with you. partner with them or hire them. That's how I found my co-founder and that's how we hire for our team. Well, Fire Nation, love the advice given here at the top of the episode because you know we're talking today about how to use challenges to grow your business. So before we get too far ahead of ourselves, Rush, what the heck is a challenge? Sure. So a challenge is essentially a time-bound learning journey with a clearly defined goal that has been broken down into some manageable steps. So it's taking your customers on a journey from point A to point B with the clearly defined steps on what your customer has to do on each day between those two points.

2:41So an example of a challenge would be a five-day healthy eating challenge, a 30-day sobriety challenge, or 90 days to financial freedom challenge. And a framework essentially is a platform on which you can build these challenges and operate them at scale. So I want to talk about how, how you came up with the idea of building a platform for challenges to run on. Talk us through that story. Yeah, it's been a crazy ride. So it began with me meeting my co-founder, Jack. We met on an expedition in Patagonia. We hit it off and decided we really liked each other and we wanted to build something together in the future.

3:24We stayed in touch. We then graduated from college, went off into our day jobs, and were trying and referring on different ideas nights and weekends. And then in the summer of 2019, my dad passed away from brain cancer. And two months after that, my girlfriend broke up with me. And I suddenly found myself in a rough spot. And I felt super isolated from everyone around me, even though I lived in New York City, surrounded by people I couldn't really relate. So I went online looking for a support group. And what I found was primarily Facebook groups and subreddits. That's where most of the internet community was happening around these topics.

4:06And it was good. There was a lot of these forums are great for wenting and commiseration. But there was no structure to them. It just felt like a free-for-all of people just pouring out their hearts, and there was no guided structure through it. So I wondered, why wasn't there an online boot camp to get over a breakup? And I wrote a post on Reddit about this, asking the internet, like, hey, dude, does anyone else want an online breakup boot camp? And if you do, we could probably build it. And this went viral. Overnight, it made the front page of Reddit. and then through a stroke of luck, it got pinned to the top of the breakup subreddit.

4:49And it became immediately clear that the internet wanted an online bootcamp for breakups. So me and Jack, I contacted Jack and I was like, hey, it looks like people want this. I want this. Let's do it. And we started out the same way most people do, essentially stringing together Google Docs, Zoom, Slack, and just built this. And it grew into something pretty massive. And ultimately, we realized like, hey, we need a platform to build all of this together instead of having it across so many different things. So long story short, over the course of the next six months, I personally counseled 18 ,000 people going through their breakups, and Jack started building this platform.

5:38and we just went at it nights and weekends. And then people started emailing us out of the blue, like, hey, my patient did your breakup bootcamp. Could we white label your software from you? Hey, my friend told me about your breakup bootcamp. I'm an instructor. Could I use your software? And that's when the apple fell from the tree is that we could use our platform to empower other people to grow their own businesses and to put these challenges out there in the world and to help people achieve their goals. And that would be far more impactful than us running it ourselves. Next thing you know, Kevin Rose, legendary Silicon Valley investor, finds us and then things just took off from there.

6:26So it's been a heck of a ride. That is quite the ride. And I just love, Fire Nation, how these ideas, how these concepts, They just start from life. They start from a real life experience. And one thing that I'm sure you've recognized, because I've recognized this myself, Rush, is that you need to build a community if you're going to be successful in this world, in the online space. And when it comes to building and running a challenge, community is everything. Getting them hyped, getting them excited, getting them on board, getting them sharing and telling their friends, being your evangelist, that is so key.

7:04So give us some unique insights that you've acquired over the years while running your own challenges, building framework that you can share with us today. Yeah, I couldn't agree more, John. Community is so important. And we've been in a unique place in that we've observed a lot of communities built on our platform. And the one key takeaway or unique insight was that high friction communities work the best. And what I mean by that is having people do some work before they enter your community and having them achieve something, they then value that community a lot more than just being immediately invited into a community where they're then just thrown into a group of where there's other people and like, oh, let's chat.

7:59And this mirrors real life as well, right? If we think about the tightest knit communities, college alumni networks, the application process to go into college is rigorous. So we then respect the people that we then meet at college. We want to stay in touch with them. The military, for example, very intensive boot camp, but really strong bonds come out of that. Or professionally, you'd think about doctors going through a residency program. Rigorous, but lifelong friendships are made there. And the same is true for online communities as well. The ones that really work are the ones where they have people do some work and there's effort needed to gain access to that.

8:46And that is essentially what a challenge can allow you to do. Fire Nation, this is one of the things you really need to realize when it comes to challenges is it's a momentum game. Once you get people going the right direction with small wins, you're sending them on these quests, that is going to extrapolate into bigger wins, more excitement, more talk, more momentum, more traction, more all of that jazz. So what's another unique insight rush that you've learned over the years when it comes to building the right community? It's about communities, online communities. There's almost this misconception that people just want to get online and talk to each other, and that is an online community.

9:26We're all busy people, and there's plenty of that happening already on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, real life, Twitter. We're bombarded with community, and having another place where just people can come and meet each other and commiserate, you're competing with a lot. What I think communities truly want is a platform where they can do something, where they achieve something together, where they can support each other working towards a goal and they can feel supported, they can feel heard, they can celebrate. And it's a place where communities can actually achieve things together. And we see that on our platform.

10:10For example, we have one of our customers runs a 30-day alcohol experiment on the platform. About 150 ,000 people have now completed that in the last year. And people are transforming their lives on this online challenge. And then community comes as a result of that because people then see the benefit. They then want to pay it forward. They stick around. They then welcome the new people coming in. And now this becomes a part of their identity. And that's what I think online community, the successful online communities actually help people do something and achieve something as opposed to just meet other people and just hang out online.

10:55Fire Nation, we're gonna talk about who can use a challenge. We're talking about mistakes that people are making and what a successful challenge looks like when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Okay, let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business. And they are also our featured partner, HighLevel. If you're an entrepreneur, coach, agency, or a course creator looking to grow faster and smarter, HighLevel is the all-in-one platform that replaces your entire tech stack. Seriously, think ClickFunnels, Calendly, MailChimp, Kajabi, and even your CRM all rolled up into one powerful white label solution.

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12:04Seriously, every question that pops up, They will have your answer waiting. And if you visit my special partnership link, you'll get a free trial. So visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial and see why thousands of businesses are switching. That's highlevelfire.com where marketing, sales, and automation finally come together. High level, join the revolution. Fire Nation, this is your year to get unstuck and to grow a successful business. Are you looking to learn the proven processes and success systems that have been used to create thousands of millionaire success stories. See thousands of success stories and testimonials from real people just like you who Clay Clark has mentored and coached into prosperity at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire.

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13:21Become the next success story. Schedule a free consultation and request tickets to join football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at Clay Clark's next business conference today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Rush, we're back. And I want to talk about who. Who within Fire Nation can use a challenge? And specifically, what can they use it for? Give us some examples. Totally. So we're seeing a wide range of people use our platform. It's big authors who have written famous books, online educators, universities, and even physicians and coaches. And more recently, there's a pregnancy clinic in Brooklyn that's now built a challenge to help mothers go through the pregnancy journey together and do certain exercises, etc.

14:13So I would say it's anyone who wants to transform the lives of their customers and help them achieve a goal can use a challenge to help them get there. This could be a way for you to build a relationship with your customers, guide them through a journey, give them a taste of what you have to offer. And then once you've proven that authority with them and shown them value, then you could essentially offer something at the end of a challenge. When someone feels rewarded and they've bought into your process, then you can sort of upsell them into a community, into a paid course, booking a session, doing another challenge, buying a product.

15:01So it's really applicable to those sorts of customers. So give us another example of somebody using a challenge, maybe like a specific challenge you've seen someone do over the last few months where you're like, that was a really unique and cool idea. Like we love those specific case studies. Sure. So one of our customers just launched a healthy eating salad challenge, which she's a famous YouTuber, and she had people build a salad every day, post a picture of that, and consume it, and then just log how they were feeling on the platform. And then people were exchanging recipes and actually seeing their days get better.

15:45And people are sharing screenshots of their sleep cycles improving, et cetera. And it was really unique and interesting. And when it started, we were really a salad eating challenge. But people loved it. And it was just mind-blowing. Another example of this would be sugaraddiction.com. They run a 30-day challenge to help people stop eating sugar. And again, it's just unreal to see people start and then at the end of it come out and their lives are just transformed and they've lost weight, they're feeling healthier, they're feeling happier. And then they come out of it like different people. And it's just awesome to see that.

16:27Now, I want to talk about mistakes that you're seeing people make when they're running challenges. I mean, you've seen it all. You've seen the success stories. You just talked about a couple. Let's talk about some actual mistakes that people are making every day when it comes to running challenges. So I think not having a clearly defined goal is one of them. I think you have to be very clear about what the challenge is about, what someone is going to get out of it, how long it lasts, what is expected of your customer as they're going through a challenge. make that super crystal clear, and then clearly define at the end of the challenge, this is what you're going to get.

17:08Being upfront about that is so key. And the benefit of that is then you now have activated your customer. They have bought into this and they're agreeing to take part on this journey, which is half the battle won right there. Another big mistake I see is 95 % of challenges today, if not 99 % of them, are still run on Facebook. And Facebook was not designed for this use case. And in addition to the complexity of just running Facebook, manually going in and uploading content every day, there's no analytics around challenges inside of Facebook. so lots of people run challenges and they have no idea about what's actually happening what are the outcomes that they're affecting in their customers lives at the end of the challenge if you had a thousand people that did a challenge 200 people come out of it and you know buy a product or sign up for a coaching session or whatever it is you might think that's super successful but what happened to the other 800 people?

18:13Did they have an adverse outcome? Why did they disappear? On what day of the challenge did they drop? These are all insights that you can get. And it's super valuable because then you can improve your challenge and understand and try different. If you can measure it, you can improve it. So you can then improve your challenge and help people achieve their goals more. It also gives you that marketing collateral that you need to then go out and say like, hey, 50 % of people that did this challenge lost 10 pounds in 10 days, which changes the game. So I'd say those are some of the mistakes that people are making.

18:53So let's talk about the overall successful challenge landscape. So you've seen the successes, the failures. What does a successful challenge actually look like in addition to things you've already mentioned? And what specifically will happen after a challenge is completed? Because I think this is where a lot of people leave a lot on the table because they run the successful challenge and then they just kind of walk away from it. They're like, all right, job well done. And they're off to the races on something else. So talk to us about a successful challenge, what that looks like, and then what happens in your opinion after a challenge is completed?

19:27There's many ways to measure success for a challenge. But what personally excites me and what I define success is when someone has been through a challenge, and then they stay on in that challenge because community naturally forms as a result of these challenges. But instead of leaving, the person actually stays on to pay it forward and then becomes this, you know, almost this wise figure in the community. And then they're there and they're welcoming the new people and sharing their advice and growing together. And that's just amazing because not only have you impacted someone's life, you have given them something that they feel fulfilled by.

20:10But from our customers' perspective, they have now built a relationship for life with this person who is now effectively promoting the customer and helping our customers manage these communities and grow and helping other people reach that same goal. And it's just amazing when that happens. And that's, I think, when you start seeing that happen inside of your challenge, that's when you know you're really on to something. So let's now talk about the big takeaway that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets from everything that we talked about today with challenges, with the mistakes, with the insights on community building.

20:50What's the one thing, if Fire Nation could just take away one thing from this episode, what would that be? The one thing is that people want to have a clearly defined goal and they want to work to achieve that. And when that is clearly laid out for them and easy for them to do, when they get to that destination, they feel like they've done the work, they feel rewarded. They're then very ready to engage deeper with you. And challenges are an incredible mechanism to make that possible. So as you think about building your communities, thinking about how you want your customers to engage with your brand, think about how can you give your customers something to do that'll improve their lives, that'll help them reach their goals, that you can help them get there, and then amazing things happen at the other side of that.

21:46Rush, give us a call to action. Where can Fire Nation go to learn more about you, about Framework, everything you have going on, any call to action you have, and then we'll say goodbye. Go to www.framework.so. Again, that's www.framework.so. We have a special offer for Fire Nation members today. So we'd love to have you there. We'd love to show you the product and can't wait to build a challenge with you. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, you've been hanging out with RS and JLD today, so keep up the heat and head over to eofire.com and type Rush, R-U-S-H in the search bar.

22:26His show notes page will pop up with everything we've talked about today. Best show notes in the biz. And one more time, Rush, where can Fire Nation go to connect with you? Framework.so. Rush, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Such an honor. Thank you, John.

23:15dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to order your copy and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Fire Nation, this is your year to get unstuck and to grow a successful business. Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at Thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Again, request life-changing tickets today at ThriveTimeShow.com slash EO Fire. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software.

23:55Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit HighLevelFire.com to start your free trial today.

24:10Thank you.